Chapter 8
HOLLY
“Hey, anyone home?” I call out, smoothing a hand over my hair one last time. “Hot Sauce is in the house.”
“Hot Sauce is late.”
“Yeah, sorry. Shelby wouldn’t let me off the phone.”
I follow his voice into the kitchen, my stomach growling. The table’s already set, wine uncorked, big white plates warming near the stove.
Dexter stands at the stove, focused on the pan. His hair is still damp, pushed to the side in that way it gets when he runs his fingers through it. He’s in a white shirt, black jeans, bare feet. I peel off my socks too. His underfloor heating on this chilly autumn evening is divine.
It’s a large, open-plan space that flows into the living area, all ash-wood cabinetry with a perfectly even grain, brushed nickel accents, and a waterfall-edge island in muted basalt stone (the excellent combination I talked him into when he couldn’t decide).
The whole room smells faintly of lemon and fresh herbs, and there’s a sense that if you moved a single spoon, he’d know.
He’s always been at home in the kitchen. Meanwhile, I can fry an egg. Barely.
“How’s she doing?” he asks.
I take a seat at the table, looping my purse over the back of the chair. “Better. Still sorting things out, but better.”
“She’s a tough cookie.”
“She has to be. He’s still being impossible. Supposed to take the kids this weekend, didn’t even show.”
Dexter turns, frowning. “Why have kids if you’re not going to show up for them?”
My heart swells at his words. “Good question,” I say with a shrug.
He plates pasta and something green. Probably spinach. Probably a whole bag of it. “I will always be there for the little guy.”
“Could be a girl,” I reply, trying to sound casual.
“Nah, it’ll be a boy.” He sets my plate in front of me (loaded with enough greens to turn my blood green) like the matter is settled.
“You don’t get to decide that,” I say, half laughing. “That’s not how this works.”
He takes his seat. “It is now.”
His tone is light, his eyes unmistakably teasing. We’ve agreed to have a baby together, and somehow, we’re still trading jokes like nothing’s changed. The comfort in that is… massive. It puts me at ease.
“Thanks for dinner, by the way.” I smile. “I wasn’t expecting it.”
“Figured you could use a proper meal instead of one of those sketchy subs from across the street.”
“Hey! Johnny’s subs aren’t sketchy.”
“You got food poisoning there. Twice.”
“Allegedly.” For the record: It was never proven that the subs were the culprit. Not that Dexter’s ever let it go.
He reaches for the wine bottle and refills both our glasses. “Still. Maybe steer clear once you’re pregnant.”
“You’ll have to pry those subs from my cold, dead hands.”
He shrugs. “If you keep eating there, that’s not off the table.”
“They’re cheap, they’re fast, and they’re perfect. All right, toast time.”
He shakes his head. “If that place takes you out, I’m not raising the baby alone.”
I snort, and raise my glass. “All right,” I repeat, “toast time.”
“All right, the stage is yours.” He tilts his glass toward mine.
“To my best friend and confidant, Dexter, who’s always been there for me—even when that means putting a baby in me.” I clink his glass, grinning at him.
He lifts a brow. “We need to talk about that wording.”
My smile slips. His words hit differently this time. I lower my glass. “You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”
“I’m not.” He takes a long sip of wine before setting his glass down. “But you did blindside me with this, Holly.”
“Just keeping you sharp. I’d say I was sorry, but let’s not pretend that’s true.”
“Mission accomplished.”
Our eyes meet over the rim of my glass as I take a sip.
I’ve always loved Dexter’s eyes. Dexter’s eyes are the kind that make women overlook a whole string of bad decisions.
Glowing chestnut brown, warm and velvety, like the kind of chocolate that melts on your tongue (and before you know it, you’ve eaten the whole bar), with an unexpected green shine when the sun hits them just right.
And behind all that, there’s a fiery intensity that’s hard to describe.
When he looks at me with those golden sparks, it feels like he sees more than I’m willing to show.
He looks into me. It’s one of the few times I ever feel truly lost—and caught the next moment.
It makes no sense, and yet it makes perfect sense.
“In all seriousness,” I say, leaning in and resting my elbows on the table, pulling myself back to focus, “I know this is a lot. And even though you’ve said you’re in, I don’t want you feeling like you owe me. I can do this on my own.”
“Holly, I already told you. I’ll be there. For you. For our kid. You know I will. Why do you act like you’re still in this alone?”
“Because every time I trusted someone, they dropped me.”
He doesn’t say anything, just watches me.
“You remember when I started the business?” I stab at a piece of broccoli. “Dean hated how much time it took, and said I’d have even less time for the gym.”
Dexter’s jaw tics.
“He was climbing the ladder at work, and the higher he rose, the more he turned on me. Told me I wasn’t the kind of woman men show off.
He announced, ‘You’re fine, Holly, but you’re not stunning.
’ He started picking at me: my body, the way I dressed, including the parts of me he once claimed to adore.
He even went after the most private parts of me.
Like I was suddenly not enough, not anywhere. ”
I take a swallow of wine, no idea why I’m even saying this out loud again. Dexter’s already heard it.
He lets out a hard breath through his nose. I love and hate that he knows exactly how much it hurt me. Part of me is grateful. Part of me wishes he didn’t know. Not this much.
“Yeah. That one stuck for a while.” I set my glass down, swallowing hard. Memories rise up, threatening to pull me under.
“You remember what I told you?”
I nod. I remember every word. When I told Dexter I was actually thinking about surgery, that’s how far Dean got in my head, he said real men don’t give a shit about that, and if I ever changed one thing about myself because of that bastard, he’d personally cut off Dean’s dick for putting those ideas in my head. And his balls.
The memory makes me laugh. “Yeah, I remember. That helped.”
Dexter doesn’t laugh. “Good. I meant every word.”
“I know.”
We fall quiet, just for a second.
He meets my eyes. “And I made sure he heard me.”
Heat crawls up my neck at his dark, ice-cold voice.
I know. I know. I should have left Dean way earlier.
I met him at seventeen, fell for his charm, and for years it was us against the world.
He could be funny, kind, so protective, impossible not to love.
I gave him everything, poured years into us, and for some stupid reason, I couldn’t bring myself to cut my losses.
And every time I got ready to leave, he promised to change.
He swore he’d never hurt me again, spun every fight until it landed back on me, twisted words until I didn’t know which way was up.
Back then I thought it was love. Real love. Shelby didn’t, she said there’s a word for it, one that started with an L, too: limerence. She said it messes with your head and judgment. That high-and-low cycle he kept me in, that grip it has on you, the way you can’t let go even when you should.
Until that night.
I’ll never forget it. He’d just gotten his big promotion.
It was after midnight, exactly 12:44 a.m. on a Thursday, full moon out, the same night he caught on to my balcony talks with Dexter.
He looked me dead in the eye and told me I was the problem.
Not him. Because he was the prize, the catch of the century, and I should feel lucky to have him.
“You’re not fit to be the wife of a man in my position,” he told me.
He pulled out his phone, opened the messages and photos he’d been saving from what he called perfect tens, and went through them one by one.
Not to hide it. To show me. All that attention waiting for him, attention he never once pushed aside.
It shattered something deep inside me, hearing and seeing proof of how little I meant to him.
And the way he used it… like ammunition.
That’s when I finally understood. I was never his first choice.
I was never his only choice. And I never would be.
I’m the problem? Fuck off, motherfucker.
I kicked him out that night.
It was over. And not just in my head, my body knew it too. I stopped wanting him. Stopped believing in the story I’d clung to for too long.
He was never my destiny. Thank God for that.
That night, I stopped believing in love. I swore I’d never open the door again, never let another man close enough to hurt me like that. I whispered it until my throat ached: May love never find me again. May love never find me again. May love never find me again.
“I still don’t know why you married him,” Dexter says, twirling pasta around his fork. “He was a sea of red flags from the get-go.”
“Because I loved him,” I shoot back. “Why do girls marry guys? Why do grown-ass women throw away their sanity and good sense?” I stretch my toes out under the table with a groan.
“Love. That’s why. Love makes you stupid.
Love makes you stay. It keeps you where you shouldn’t be.
That’s why part of me still thinks I’ll never fully recover. ”
He’s silent.
“Also,” I add, “there weren’t red flags from the start.”
“You sure? Think back to the first dinner I hosted after he moved in with you.”
“Oh God,” I mutter. “Yeah. That one.”
“He hid on my balcony the whole time, then came in just to trash my vegetarian lasagna with homemade béchamel. Dad’s recipe.”
“But come on, Dexter,” I say in a teasing voice. “He said it was passable. Said he’d had worse.”
“Yeah, and I told him if he didn’t shut the fuck up, I’d fix that for him.”
I laugh. “God, his face. I thought he was going to explode.”
“I know.”
Needless to say, Dean wasn’t thrilled about my best friend.
After that night, he told me to cut Dexter off completely.
He said if I didn’t, Dexter would end up in the hospital with broken ribs, a fractured skull, and no teeth.
I never told Dexter about the threat. Of course I didn’t.
Because if it ever came to that, I was certain it wouldn’t be Dexter lying in a hospital bed.
Dexter and Dean had a few things in common. Both intelligent. Both tall, muscular, attractive. Controlling, even sweet when they wanted to be.
But that’s where the similarities stopped.
Dean was a macho man held together by jealousy and ego. Dexter... wasn’t.
Back then, I believed Dean would eventually come around. That he’d see what was obvious to everyone else—that Dexter wasn’t a threat. That he was always with someone, and he’d never once made a move on me. If anything, that was crystal clear proof he didn’t see me that way.
It didn’t matter. Dean wasn’t interested in logic.
So when I told Dexter we needed to “lie low” for a bit, just until Dean cooled off, he lost it. Called it motherfucking bullshit—and he was right. I’ve never seen him so angry.
For a while, I thought I’d lost him.
But then, two weeks later on a Thursday, and by pure coincidence, we ran into each other on the balcony. It was midnight. He couldn’t sleep. Neither could I. We chatted, chilled, laughed (quietly, so we wouldn’t wake Dean), like we used to, like good friends did.
After that, I started seeing him everywhere.
In the elevator. In the garage. At the takeout place he swore he hated.
Even at Home Depot when I was grabbing supplies for a project.
And somehow, every Thursday night for the next three years, we both ended up on our balconies. Midnight on the dot. Like clockwork.
What a coincidence. Haha.
He’s good for me. Good for my soul. He’ll never know how much.
Dexter’s expression hardens. “Yeah, well. Divorcing him was the best decision you ever made.”
“But that’s my point, Dexter. Every time I rely on someone, it comes back to bite me.
Quite painfully so. The harsh truth is that not everyone is loyal.
Not everyone is faithful. And not everyone will see your worth, no matter how much you give.
The only person I’ve ever been able to count on is… myself.”
I watch him, waiting.
What I get is a slow, knowing smile.
Ha. I knew he’d never bite. I grin. “Just kidding. You too. That’s why I asked you.”
He reaches across the table, brushes his knuckles across my arm, and lets his fingertips rest softly on top of my fingers.
He has nice hands. I’ve noticed them before (of course I have), but never like this. They’re strong. Masculine. Long fingers, neatly kept nails, that light dusting of dark hair.
Normally, his touch—rare as it is—is reassuring. Comforting. Like a friend being there, the kind of friend you can fall apart in front of and not feel judged. And it still is. But tonight...
Tonight, there’s something else. A deeper intimacy than usual.
Maybe it’s the talk. The reality of what we’re planning. Having a child together is on another level entirely. It changes things.
Then it hits me.
We’re going to have sex. That realization hits me like a freight train.
Dexter. Me. Naked.
His hands on my body.
The thought strikes me harder than I expected. My heart stutters. My brain tries to brush it off as hormones, stress, maybe wine.
I almost pull my hand away. Almost.
But I don’t.
It feels too good, too safe. And maybe a little too thrilling.
“I’m honored,” he says calmly, his thumb stroking once along the length of my index finger before he lets go.
Is he doing it on purpose? First the hug at my door, then making me sling my arms around him like that after I climbed on his bike.
He’d handed me his jacket and was only in a thin shirt, so yes, I felt every muscle of that six-pack.
And just now, his hand on mine. It almost feels like he’s easing me, consciously or not, into the idea of us touching.
“But, first things first,” he grumbles. His face gives nothing away. He’s cool and impossible to read. If his thoughts are spiraling like mine, he’s hiding it damn well. I catch the shadow along his jaw, the rough stubble on his chin and cheeks, and my fingers itch to trace it.
“First things first,” I repeat mindlessly, watching him. “And what exactly does that mean?”
He leans down and pulls a stack of papers from under his chair. With a flick of his wrist, he sets them onto the table.
“I took the liberty of drawing up a contract.”